LAWFUL SEARCHES

Few things protect the public from a police state better than the Fourth
Amendment prohibition against searches and seizures without probable cause.
The U.S. Supreme Court stopped the slow deterioration of that safeguard
last week by ruling in a 6-3 decision that police roadblocks set up to
discover drugs are unconstitutional.

The de-evolution of this amendment has been evident for some time. As a
result of a similar case in Michigan that passed constitutional muster 10
years ago, police in many states have authorized roadblocks as an effective
tool against drunken driving.

But the careful safeguards set up as part of the Michigan case have slowly
gone by the wayside. It finally reached the point that police officers in
Indianapolis were pulling over all motorists, checking IDs and having
trained dogs sniff around the vehicles for drugs. The checkpoints netted
100 arrests -- half for drug offenses and the other half for license problems.

Given problems with racial profiling alone, the potential and likely abuses
of such an unfettered drug checkpoint system are staggering. What's the
natural progression of such police practices? Random drug searches of
pedestrians? Fortunately, the court saw the constitutional peril of such a
system.

In writing for the majority, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor noted that if the
line wasn't drawn here, "the Fourth Amendment would do little to prevent
such intrusions from becoming a routine part of American life."

And life, at that point, would be anything but routine.